People don't talk enough about how tiring, boring, enraging, time-consuming, expensive and thankless parenthood is.

They don't? Clearly she doesn't travel in my circles. I'm fully aware that many people don't "feel complete" unless they have children — and that's fine — but I've been cheerfully childfree, and vocally so, for decades.

Knowing that you don't want children, and taking steps to keep yourself from being a parent, is a recent luxury in the development of man (and woman). But it's hardly an undiscussed topic.

The two things I hear as a childfree guy:

"Because you don't have kids, you'll never be able to appreciate the joy of what it means to be a parent."

"Because you don't have kids, you'll never be able to appreciate the joy of what it means NOT to be a parent."

Attentive parenting is overrated. The goal is to turn out responsible adults. Productive members of society. We all come from a long line of successful reproducers and child rearers or else we wouldn’t be here.

Self fulfillment is ok, in societies who have the wealth and stability to afford it, but it has not been an achievable goal for most people in most of human history.

The artists poets and writers among us seem to have a larger share of personal angst about their place in life than the blue collar schmucks who just get on with the business of living.

My son in law took apart a commercial espresso machine last night because he literally cannot rest until he determines why something isn’t working and fixes it.

These are the heros of civilization.

"Having babies is a strong impulse, a forgivable one, but it's also just a habit, a tradition, like weddings or putting butter on popcorn."

I'm sure mothers worldwide can rest comfortably knowing that Lucy Ellmann, who, based on a skimming of the Guardian interview, Checks All the Progressive Boxes, forgives them.

It used to be "self-fulfillment" meant that one caught, killed, gathered or otherwise obtained enough to eat so as to not be hungry.

And that was for today. Tomorrow would be another story, unless one brought in a mammoth or a buffalo. In which case you could relax for a bit.

Most people do appear to take joy in having kids. Some certainly do not. As for calling having kids just a tradition like marriage or buttered popcorn, that really shows how misguided things have become. For one marriage really isn't a tradition anymore. In 1960 over 90% of people were married by age 30. Today that is under 50%. It has been falling since the 1970s. The bottom appears to be around 20%. So not much of a tradition any more. If you look over history there are lots of civilizations that gave up the 'tradition of having kids'. Those civilizations no longer exist.

It is also telling that marriage and children are presented together. Historically the main point of marriage is kids. Something far too many American's aren't aware of. As we've added more and more 'features' to marriage it has become more and more unworkable. The reality even today is if you aren't looking to have kids it probably doesn't make sense to get married.

Let's get Lenona in here… She posted a relevant link just the other day— Lenona at May 23, 2020 10:57 AM

> Attentive parenting is overrated.

Well… Helicopters are madness, certainly.

Give this video seven minutes from 1:21:21. Or Google "unshared experience" plus Jordan Peterson or Robert Plomin.

Your parents might be angelic; my mother in particular is strong and decent, a galactic champion.

But beyond conception, parents not responsible for who we become. And your genetic propensities become more pronounced as you age. You may become ever-more fucked up as you get old, but the problem isn't Mom & Dad's attitude.

Yes, this *is* a subtle truth to consider against the Harris & Markovits podcast linked yesterday, which affirms that the enduring success of generations of elites is consequent to intense support and provisioning of children.

Earthling, I am not from your violent world, but from Planet Nuance… And yet your atmosphere is much like our own!

A few weeks before my father’s funeral I saw an appropriate cartoon. There was a sign on the door of a room. The sign said “Meeting of Adult Children of Perfect Parents”

The room was empty.

It occurred to me at the time that I, most likely would be in that room. And still, I myself was far from the perfect parent.

Was talking to a friend a few years ago. His mother, by his telling was a saint, and his father a vicious alcoholic with a beautiful singing voice. I could tell he loathed his father.

His parents had come to the United States, Jewish refugees from Poland in 1948 after literally ten years of nothing but war and the aftermath, a displaced persons camp.

His father had been in the polish cavalry at Krojanty, and after their defeat by the Nazis had fled for the Russian lines where he was promptly drafted into the Russian Army and served at the battle of Stalingrad.

I’m thinking, Jesus Christ, give the poor guy a break. If I had gone through what he did, I probably would drink myself into oblivion too.

The point is, We simply can’t know what kind of emotional and physiological damage that other people, including our parents carry with them. We should forgive them for their imperfections and be appreciative for the stuff they got right.

It behoves us all to be grateful that we are here today, living in a fashion that was beyond the reach of Midas, two thousand years ago.

Progressives seem to suffer from the worst sort of hysterical fantasy about what their world should be like.

Agree wholeheartedly, Amy. Anyone who can possibly be talked out of breeding should be.

I was surprised to see that Ellmann IS a mother, and, according to the interviewer, both a great defender and critic of motherhood. She sounds well qualified to comment.

While it's true that pronatalists MAY not be as vitriolic as they used to be, since they know the tide is turning against them, it amazes me how many of them still feel the need to refer, without provocation, to childfree people and falling birth rates as the sign of a "culture of death" or "nihilism" or some such.

(Ever noticed, too, that pronatalists don't have a single word of criticism for those couples who CAN'T reproduce but who refuse to adopt even a healthy baby? What sense does it make not to criticize them? How are those couples not "selfish"?)

How is any society a "culture of death" when it has a higher percentage of loving parents and truly wanted children, who are more likely to have happy childhood memories, and less likely to become criminals?

Or when one considers that birth rates naturally fall when adults make more of an effort to live within their MEANS - and when they think hard about what they really want out of life and the best way to get it? (In other words, when they're better educated and are raised to take education seriously.)

Not to mention that not everyone can juggle their paid and unpaid work properly, and there is no shortage of incredible people who might not have been able to benefit the world half as much if they'd had children. Namely, Emily Dickinson, Pablo Casals, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., etc.

Which brings me to the last-resort argument of many anti-childfree "intellectuals": "You're not a real adult until you put other people first and take responsibility for them."

And people ALREADY do that for their parents. Sometimes they have to do that at a pretty early age. Many people are frantic - both before and during the pandemic - because they are sandwiched between caring for their young children and their ailing parents. Even CF people caring for their parents still have their job responsibilities. On top of that, how are workers with great responsibilities to their clients, patients, etc., not "adults"?

Btw, if any priest or nun tells me I need to reproduce to prove I'm not selfish, I'll say "fine. You go first."

An old thread:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/09/18/does_the_choice.html

> While it's true that pronatalists
> MAY not be as vitriolic as they
> used to be

Four syllables is a lot of syllables to describe an insecure person who's trying to feign social elevation from a happily childless person unconcerned with the opinions of others about such anyway.

I've always wondered why the 'pronatalists' — or as I call them, weaselninny busybodies — don't similarly condemn teh gays for not making babies… I mean, is parenthood the essential certification of human fitness, or isn't it? Do people's feelings matter, or do they not?

And to those who say that childfree people will regret not reproducing, I say: "Just how do you know how many people over 40 are happy to be CF but keep QUIET about it?"

Also, many people talk openly about being CF ONLY because they're unlucky enough to live in communities where nosy friends, neighbors and co-workers refuse to mind their own business. (I suspect most members of Bratfree are surrounded by such nosy people.) Otherwise, they'd be only too happy to talk to their friends, neighbors and co-workers about what they're doing with their lives instead of what they're not doing - and their listeners would be content to hear about that.

In another thread, I said:

I haven't known anyone who said one thing to ME, but did the opposite later. Most of the people I know are discreet enough not to blab about anything they might change their minds about.

Maybe it happens to those under 40, but if you're older than that and get "broody," as blogger Sylvia Lucas pointed out, that's likely just a case of wanting the fun without the work. Like wanting grandchildren to play with - and then send home. I.e., it's not real regret.

As she said:

"How can there be regret for something that was never, until now, a desire?"

“While it's true that pronatalists MAY not be as vitriolic as they used to be, since they know the tide is turning against them, it amazes me how many of them still feel the need to refer, without provocation, to childfree people and falling birth rates as the sign of a "culture of death" or "nihilism" or some such.”

Some of us have noticed that the future belongs to those who show up for it.

Not vitriolic about it at all. Just a fact of life.

These days the people least likely to have kids are the ones most suited for it. (Intelligent people capable of Planning their lives a bit further than a day ahead)

Used to be parenthood was pretty much a fact of life. Now it is a choice for most of the first and second worlds.

Not sure we all being replaced by the children of third worlders or those from oppressive anti freedom anti woman cultures, is going to be a net positive for the human race.

Also not sure I need to worry about it. We all will be long gone, like the tall Frenchmen.

From page 171 of George Carlin's "Napalm & Silly Putty":

"Would someone please explain to me the supposed appeal of having grandchildren? People ask me, 'Are you a grandfather yet?' as if it's some great thing. I'm sure it has its charms, and I imagine some dull-witted people want to see their genes passed along for the sheer novelty of the idea. But overall, I don't get it."

(His daughter, to my knowledge, has always been happily childfree. I suspect the above was also Carlin's way of saying "it's HER private business, damn it, so knock off the subject when you're talking to me!" Not to mention that given his and his wife's terrifying drug habits, he was probably also saying to her "yes, we screwed up, so I don't blame you for not breeding.")

Nothing more frustrating than being told by some smug preening person that you do not even know your own mind or cannot evaluate your own experiences and make your own life decisions from an intelligent perspective. For instance, I would never tell a person who has decided that they do not want to become a parent that they just don't know what they are talking about.

Lucy Ellman is an insufferable prig. She just "knows" that after having children, I lost my capacity for thought, ability to gain knowledge and to have adult conversation. I was destined to become an a-political milk-producing zombie who probably had no idea "how tiring, boring, enraging, time-consuming, expensive and thankless parenthood is." Because that's such a well-kept secret. More secret knowledge bestowed by Ellman: teenagers are moody, erratic, and self-centered. If only I would have realized that cute babies do not morph directly into pleasant adults!

What I did NOT know about parenthood? How deeply satisfying it would turn out to be. It wasn't actually a lot of "fun," I don't like playing games with kids etc. I had few illusions about the downside but didn't even begin to appreciate the upside until my husband and I plunged in.

Ellman is also an idiot. She is convinced that if the world were to be organized by woman, it would be one perfect cooperative paradise. One wonders if she has ever even met any women?

As she said:

"How can there be regret for something that was never, until now, a desire?"}}}

Interesting question. Seems to me that it could only be true, though, if desires are always appropriate and timed perfectly during the course of one's life--and that they are not legitimate desires if they do not appear as scheduled.

For instance, I regret the shit out of not starting to save for the long-term when I was younger. I had no desire to do so at that time, you see. Now I have the desire--have had for 20 years or so--as a result of life experience and changes in my own thought-process and value systems. Why is it ridiculous to think that a person might go through a similar process and come to the realization that they regret not becoming a parent, or not starting sooner on their quest to become one?

And in the meantime, we're whizzing along toward Jan. 2023, when we'll likely hit 8 billion. How is doubling the number of babies a good idea?

It's been pretty well established that immigrants who move to low-fertility countries tend to copy their new neighbors' reproduction rates. Maybe because they now can? (Not to mention that when immigrant kids are surrounded by many cultures instead of one, there's no guarantee they're going to follow their parents' religion or politics.)

Btw, in the book "Do They Hear You When You Cry" (about Togo's Fauziya Kassindja's flight from FGM) it's made clear that while most Western women likely wouldn't want to live in many - most? - African countries, that doesn't mean that there isn't plenty to admire about many of its cultures. Her white lawyer - Layli Miller Bashir, from Atlanta - had worked for a few weeks in The Gambia and cried when she had to leave, since even though the people were poor, "they had a different kind of wealth - a warmth, a lovingness, a generosity of spirit she'd never experienced before."

And in an article I posted some years ago, about Third Worlders, it said that TV programs (that is, fictional programs made in those countries, about those people) are having a big impact for the better. Namely, when viewers in those countries get a chance to see fictional characters living happier, more productive lives by using local family planning services and having smaller families, they want to do the same. That includes getting good prenatal care and not having to witness miscarriages or crib deaths, so they don't feel the need to keep getting pregnant without planning first. As the World Hunger Project once said, when people know their children will not die, they have fewer children. So solving the hunger problem would lower both the birth rate and poverty rate.

And people who opt completely out of parenthood may have more education, smarts, and job prospects than others. That is NOT the same thing as being "suited" for parenthood. Many choose not to have kids in part because their family medical backgrounds have serious flaws, whether genetic, chemical or mental. Or maybe they were beaten as kids and don't want to risk repeating that pattern.

"Would someone please explain to me the supposed appeal of having grandchildren? People ask me, 'Are you a grandfather yet?' as if it's some great thing. I'm sure it has its charms, and I imagine some dull-witted people want to see their genes passed along for the sheer novelty of the idea. But overall, I don't get it."

Here is a hint for you Lenona. When people ask older people if you have any grandchildren yet, it isn’t a serious question. They are not demanding information about your personal life from you. It is a conversation starter like “where are you from”?
There is a fine line between nosy and interested. You don’t need to treat everyone like they are a gossipy cleaning lady fishing for information to pass along to their next customer in a small town.

Learn how to make jokes about subjects you don’t want to discuss.

Example. Nosy bitch says “So, are you a grandparent yet? “
Your answer: “Not unless there is something my kids aren’t telling me”
Or maybe, “the UPS man dropped one off on my porch, but he was at the wrong house”

Disclaimer. I am not a grandparent. At this point there is about a ninety five percent chance I won’t ever be one. I don’t spend any time worrying about it.

Rigeldog - apples and oranges. Planning for your future financial security is something everyone NEEDS to do and practice doing early on, and even the perfect adult child can get hit by a car and die or become paralyzed, so even wanted children are not to be counted on as support. The same goes for building a circle of friends, but in a way, friends can be more reliable and loving as you get old, if you have enough of them and you give as well as take.

(And look at the situation we're in right now - no ordinary person saw that coming.)

https://sylviadlucas.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/childfree-regret/#more-1970

"Will the childfree regret their choice later?"

Most of it, by Sylvia D. Lucas:

...I always think the “regret” question (or, sometimes, curse – “You’ll regret it!”) is a little weird, because it creates – as I see it, anyway – a paradox.

If someone who genuinely doesn’t want kids at 20, 25, and then 30 doesn’t have kids, s/he’s behaving in a manner consistent with her/his desires for his/her life. “I don’t want to have or raise children” = “I won’t have or raise children.”

If at 55 or 60 the same person has retired and says, “Gee, I wish I would have had kids,” that isn’t – or shouldn’t be called – regret. If anything, someone who genuinely didn’t want children when younger but decides when they’re older that they “shoulda had them” is experiencing a simple desire for something they don’t currently have. They want a child or children right NOW…that is, to suddenly have them around for this moment now that they’ve changed their mind/become lonely/had a crisis. But they certainly didn’t want them before, didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives raising them, or they would have tried to have them.

How can there be regret for something that was never, until now, a desire?

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll regret not having kids later?” (something many people ask) also implies that at some point everyone wants, or will want to have had, kids. And that simply isn’t the case. It also implies that you should aim your life in a direction that MIGHT eliminate regret felt on a porch swing at 90 years old, that to be on the safe side, maybe you should give birth and overhaul your life even if you really don’t want to on the off-chance that you’ll have second thoughts in the future.

A good predictor of future regret – whether it’s over eating a donut, marrying the wrong person, or calling in sick for the third time that week – is thinking I’m going to hate myself for this later.

A person who desperately wants children, marries someone who doesn’t want children, and agrees to stay married without children even as s/he continues to want them will very likely likely have that thought. This person is creating a perfect regret scenario.

But people who truly don’t want children usually aren’t thinking, “I’m going to hate myself for this later.”...

(Snip)

Isab, I think it was the "yet" that irritated Carlin, but he was very polite in person, so for all we know, he did just what you suggested.

But why get irritated at all, you ask? Maybe because he grew up in the sort of family where you just didn't ask personal questions like that? (I certainly did - even my closer relatives, on both sides, don't talk like that, whether to me or other people, to my knowledge.) I don't think I've ever even overheard someone asking another person that question, when it included the word "yet." Not to mention the implication that Carlin should have been disappointed that he WASN'T a grandfather.

From that thread I linked to, here's why "friendly" questions are often bad ones.
_______________________________________

I find it strange and rude that people even ask about whether you want children. I know most people think it's an appropriate and innocent question, but it's always been a rather invasive question to me. It used to be because I didn't want children, and I didn't want to hear for the millionth time "you'll change your mind" or some other condescending BS. At that time in my life, I did NOT want children, and I did not want to hear from someone who didn't know me well enough to say so, that I would change my mind. If I change my mind, it was none of their business.

Now though, I find it rude because I've been through a miscarriage, and after deciding I wanted a baby, that was the most devastating thing to go through. I have a cousin who has wanted children her entire life, and you know what? She had four miscarriages before she was able to get pregnant and give birth to a healthy son. So those questions like "when are you going to have a baby?" can really sting in the wrong circumstances.

Obviously it's important for people who are dating to ask those sorts of questions.. but I'm talking about people who will in no way be a part of making the baby, asking those questions.

Angie at September 18, 2012 10:50 AM

I am childfree. My best friend is childless. I can feel sadness for her never getting what she wanted, but I'll never be able to know what it's like to want a baby, any more than she can know what it's like to not want one.

I got my share of incredulous looks from women about not wanting babies, and nobody ever called me selfish, because that was often my lead sentence: "I'm too selfish." Took the wind right out of their sails.

Pricklypear at September 18, 2012 11:03 AM
_________________________________________

And, btw, Miss Manners has said that there's more than one type of "where are you from" question. One is perfectly polite. The other is not. Hint: it usually has to do with a person's foreign accent. At the very least, the speaker is expected to phrase the question as "may I ask you where you're from?"

Plus, there's an old joke about the English. "Never ask an Englishman where he's from. If he's from Yorkshire, he'll tell you, and if not, it's unfair to embarrass him."

Interesting that people who talk about being "deprived" of the "fulfillment" of a career suddenly forget (or selectively embrace) the joy that comes in, and after, a long frustrating effort to acheive something you value.

Or the joy of expressing oneself - artistically or otherwise - despite hardships that result, and must be endured.

For even the luckiest, most talented people "fulfilling work" involves lotsa drudgery, dues paying and dream deferral, competition, and stifling or compromising one's "vision" in the service of customers and other strangers.

Which makes the intimate service and labor of building a home and raising children a lot more fulfilling and "uncompromisingly self-expressive" than most people's work lives...

Before you prattle on about fulfillment, Remember: parents know all that you do about the working world and its discontents.

Another example:

Most people now agree it's really not polite to ask people, even ones you know well, "when are you going to start looking for someone to marry?" For multiple reasons.

It USED to be normal and not exactly rude to be that nosy, but not for the last 40 years or so.

Self fulfillment is ok, in societies who have the wealth and stability to afford it, but it has not been an achievable goal for most people in most of human history.
___________________________________

I agree. What many don't realize is that even CF people can't necessarily work at jobs they love or even like. Even if their parents are already dead, there are other factors to consider - like the rising cost of housing in safe neighborhoods.

But, as MRA Dr. Helen Smith has pointed out, many young men are realizing that if they don't want children very much - or at all - they can often get away with avoiding jobs that are highly dangerous and/or misery-inducing, unlike their older male relatives. Especially once they grasp the fact that a man shouldn't have to support a CF housewife unless he wants to. (How many CF housewives EXIST, anyway?)

At any rate, there's a reason a well-known cartoonist got genuine laughs from a strip in which a stockbroker father says to his near-polar-opposite son, who hasn't chosen a career yet:

"Do you think I LIKE my job? I don't! I HATE it! And one day you'll hate yours, too! Accept it!....That's NORMAL, dammit!"

That is, even if neither men or women have ever been able to "have it all," there's still a reason that the idea of "the pursuit of happiness" (or, at least, not living a life of misery) is likely even older than the Declaration of Independence.

Lenona: Not apples and oranges, because the original quote specified that there did, indeed, come a time when the desire (not just free-floating regret) itself manifested. I picked the personal example of saving because it reflected the fact that I had a desire to maximize current spending when I was younger in lieu of longer-term savings. I DID have savings, btw, I wasn't irresponsible per se. I just developed wisdom to see that what I spent money on in my twenties and early thirties was mostly fripperies and that more aggressive savings would have given me greater flexibility to enrich my life later.

Perhaps a better example: we have a friend, a fellow lawyer, who married and was adamant that she did not want children. She acquired the desire for children rather suddenly, in her late 30's, and is intensely regretful that she was never able to have them. Turns out that some changes in her female plumbing that had occurred in her mid-thirties had rendered her infertile. Had she interrogated her anti-child stance earlier in life, she might have uncovered the desire that manifested later on.

A sad story, yes, but I have yet to hear anything to suggest that cases like that are a majority when it comes to CF women.

That is, uneducated women don't postpone having babies anyway, and educated women can't help but hear all the scary media stories about female fertility plunging after age 30, even when they're not looking for such stories. Therefore, educated fence-sitters are likely to make up their minds earlier, since they know they have to.

Btw, I remember someone at Bratfree saying she suddenly wanted babies, probably at that same age, but she said "I knew it was just hormones talking." At any rate, she got over it. Had it been a real desire, she would have changed her mind earlier.

Again, as I said,

> And in the meantime, we're
> whizzing along toward Jan. 2023,
> when we'll likely hit 8 billion.
> How is doubling the number of
> babies a good idea?

IIRC, we achieved 'peak baby' in 2017… Ever-fewer diapers to change from here on out, but the world's population still grows because we all live so much longer.

(Unchecked pandemic in our steaming urban centers and global economic disintegration may reset, accelerate or reverse any number of those imaginary population 'clocks'.)



> there's more than one type
> of "where are you from"
> question

The American kind of "where are you from" questions are the best. I grew up in a place with a lot of people from around the world, not all of them young, and not all of them competent at American conversation.

Then as now, I've been confounded at the inquires which other cultures, including the exotic peoples of United States Suburbia, will regard as almost sexually intrusive and intimidatingly gauche. In adulthood it's been a surprise that many Europeans are offended when asked what they do for a living, as if strangers would reflexively investigate some deeper core of their personal worth than how they spend their time. In college, Middle Easterners speaking entirely competent English would, after a 20-sentence exchange, confess their surprise that you would engage a conversation at all.

Guys— We don't care about you enough to instigate a probing psychological audit, okay? We've got our own stuff going on… Specifically, you're standing in front of the onion dip, we've got a fistful of ruffled chips, and we're trying to be friendly while we wait for you to clear out of the way. What did you come to a party for if you're afraid to share anything of yourself with people you don't know?

FIUTS International Student Handbook

- Social Customs in the United States

- - Making Friends

You may find that American students smile easily and are not hesitant to talk, but this is not an automatic commitment to friendship. In this fast-paced society where Americans are taught to be self-reliant, friendships are often transitory and established to meet personal needs at a certain time. Many Americans have friends at work, friends at school, and so on, but only a few very close friendships. Friendships are usually the result of repeated interactions between individuals who share similar views and a variety of experiences together. Casual friendships are especially common among college-age students who are trying to establish personal autonomy and are coming into contact with a variety of people representing different values and life-styles. This is not meant to discourage international students from attempting to establish friendships with Americans. Most Americans readily accept new people into their social groups. One of the best ways to meet Americans is to go to concerts, sporting events, and church activities, or to join a special interest group on campus.

Used to be parenthood was pretty much a fact of life.
_________________________________________

So was dying in childbirth, aggravated by pushing girls to marry as soon as they hit puberty. While it DID become somewhat normal for women to marry in their 20s, circa 1800, girls frequently married in their teens long after that date, since even doctors didn't know that was dangerous. (Given how high the teen marriage rate was in the 1950s, unlike in earlier decades, I wonder how many doctors, THEN, knew it was dangerous.) Nowadays, mostly, neither premature death or teen marriage is considered acceptable in developed countries.

At any rate, leaving aside racist presidents who pushed white American couples to have more children, there was also, of course, pressure to have children after each world war. Now there are other factors to be considered - such as loss of jobs due to automation and what sort of a future today's children might have.

And even in First World countries, there are poor women and girls who can't afford to have babies but have them anyway, often due to an overwhelming sense of despair. If they had more options in life, they'd be less likely to take pride in unwed motherhood.

But then, of course, the birth rates in those countries would drop even more! Oh, the horror!

Since good contraception methods have been pursued since ancient times, it was inevitable that we would have all the methods we do after several thousand years, and that we would decide that "every child should be a wanted child." Why don't we try to adjust to that? Yes, we will have great economic problems. Maybe it's time to return to personal frugality and a stronger work ethic, since that was the way of most of the world until the 20th century, according to David M. Tucker's book, "The Decline of Thrift in America: Our Cultural Shift from Saving to Spending."

We must learn to enjoy spending on the needs of the elderly rather than on the luxuries of the young. Many countries have always believed in putting the elderly first. Why doesn't so much of the Western world? Not to mention that the environment can live without humans, but not the other way around.

In short, just because our economy is based on buying luxuries, credit card debt, massive pollution, and not-so-wanted babies doesn't mean it has to stay that way.

Btw, if COVID-19 puts a real dent in the elderly population after a couple of years, the smarter people will realize that we won't need as many new taxpayers as before, so the CF will get bolder in their demands for more accessible birth control, and poor childless people will say "you want us to have babies? How about more tax incentives first?"

Again, as I said,

Lenona at May 25, 2020 2:11 PM

I forgot to repeat that part about how, if you're over 40, it's likely not a real regret.
______________________________________

> And in the meantime, we're
> whizzing along toward Jan. 2023,
> when we'll likely hit 8 billion.
> How is doubling the number of
> babies a good idea?

IIRC, we achieved 'peak baby' in 2017…
____________________________________________

Got any details on that? I'm truly curious.

Btw, I should probably have said "how is doubling the birth rate a good idea?" After all, despite the death rate going down, it obviously still exists. The point is that when we increase by 1 billion every 12 years, that clearly means that there were FAR more than just 1 billion babies born in each 12-year period.
_____________________________________

In adulthood it's been a surprise that many Europeans are offended when asked what they do for a living, as if strangers would reflexively investigate some deeper core of their personal worth than how they spend their time.
__________________________________

I've heard that's because in many countries, the class structure is more rigid than in the U.S., so it feels like a more personal question. There are also those European countries that have large welfare states.

Btw, a Republican I know who's 52, I think, says that in his opinion, if you know that a man has been searching for work for ages, asking him if he's found a job yet is an act of hate. (Yes, he's been having quite a bit of trouble getting work - it's not his fault.)
____________________________________

In college, Middle Easterners speaking entirely competent English would, after a 20-sentence exchange, confess their surprise that you would engage a conversation at all.
_____________________________________

Explain, please? I don't follow.

Btw, if COVID-19 puts a real dent in the elderly population after a couple of years, the smarter people will realize that we won't need as many new taxpayers as before, so the CF will get bolder in their demands for more accessible birth control, and poor childless people will say "you want us to have babies? How about more tax incentives first?"

Lenona at May 25, 2020 2:51 PM

Didn’t work in Germany in the 80’s. Won’t work here. The tax incentives for being a parent are better in this country than they have ever been in any place at any time. Birthrate is still going down. Probably because birth control is also more accessible here than anytime in history as well.

There are so many resources about this. I am just not inclined to worry about population. People add value, they don't subtract from it, and you and I need not worry that we personally will be expected to cook more breakfasts than we can pay for.

Peak Baby

Peak Baby

A good overview.

Nine and a half more hours every day.

There was an article about an impoverished nation, I think it was Kenya, which had an enormous amount of poverty eradicated over Y2k-2010. A smart person looked at the numbers and said citizens could have graduated schools, started romances, ended romance, started families, graduated their kids, built houses, built businesses, run for office, watched their grandchildren graduate, and do all the other things a citizenry does for TEN FULL YEARS, the complete decade… But because longevity was increasing so quickly for the nation, they would be no closer to death when the decade and all of its blessings were over than they were when it started.

You may not be a fiction or science-fiction minded person. But you will scour the shelves in your library without finding any human being in the first decades of the twentieth century who dared to dream how much better life was going to become on this planet. Even for the girls!

We teach them to read now!

Consider watching this entire video.

Human beings are assets.

On average they create more wealth than they consume.

> Explain, please? I don't follow.

I can't make it any clearer, because it was like a bank of fog to me at the time! They said something like "Where we're from, no one would *ever* approach someone they don't know and simply start talking!"

And again, this was as clear an example of English speech as anything heard in the surrounding Midwestern countryside, less of an accent than Tennessee, a couple hundred miles to the south. Arab or Iranian, I think. And after that — well, throughout the encounter — they were perfectly courteous.

Being young and tame I did NOT ask them 'then-why-the-Hell-did-you-come-to-a-party.'

The Independent, 2015

WaPo, last summer

> in many countries, the class
> structure is more rigid than
> in the U.S., so it feels like
> a more personal question

That's an outstanding point. But I didn't respond this afternoon just as I wouldn't respond to such intimations when meeting a European in a setting where casual conversation might be desired; Because I'm an American, dammit, and our tradition takes a knee for no man. I despise royalty in all its guises, no matter how trivial its subjugations. (I used to tan commenter Tressider's hide over this kind of thing. She was blind to her presumption, I enjoyed it too much.) Those born to dream of being a princess (or a prince) will never really grow up. To dream of asking everything of yourself and your associates, as Michael Jordan and Steve Jobs did is serve your fellows better than any king could ever hope to do.

So, yeah, whenever anyone (even in person) triggers thinking along the lines of your perfectly correct insight, I check out instantly. Can't be bothered. It's not what life is about.

We're free men and women, even in Europe: If you're ashamed of your station in life, ascend to a new one, and expect no coddling from me as you climb.

Just guessing, but maybe they knew that not going to informal parties, in particular, would make them look anti-social, so they felt they HAD to go. But, they had no idea what to do once they got there, since they grew up in a society of formal introductions. (Sort of like pre-WWII Britain, where, if you tried to make conversation with someone you hadn't been formally introduced to, that person was likely to give you a cold look and say "do I KNOW you?")

You can check the history of tax incentives and childbirth Lenona. There is pretty much no good correlation. Children are a very long term investment (18 odd years to get them self sufficient). That is a long enough planning window most people can't handle it. Quite frankly most people can't handle a two month planning window as is shown by how little the average american has in liquid assets.

For the uneducated with an extremely short ability to plan welfare payments can tick up the birth rate. But those are the people you typically want to encourage to have more kids.

If you want the highly educated to have more kids oddly enough you get that when there are no incentives. A simpler tax code with no special privileges tends to do it.

Sort of like pre-WWII Britain, where, if you tried to make conversation with someone you hadn't been formally introduced to, that person was likely to give you a cold look and say "do I KNOW you?")

Lenona at May 25, 2020 6:01 PM

You have been watching too many British period dramas. Pre World War II America was also very formal, but only among the upper classes and the professional classes. I have boxes of calling cards, and also a very nice little sterling sliver calling card case left in one of my grandfathers trunks. He was a doctor and also high ranking military. However Americans have never been as overtly class conscious as the Brits.

There was a very interesting article by Clarice Feldman, I believe on the class consciousness of Britain, even in the 70’s.

A good book on understanding English Americans by understanding their cultural roots, is Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer.

Isab, kindly don't make assumptions.

I NEVER watch Masterpiece Theatre, if that's what you're thinking, and I gave up 99% of newly-released movies in theatres, years ago. (In part because they were just too expensive - and loud.)

So where did I get that idea?

From a much-loved and very witty British friend/entertainer who was born before World War One and left England as soon as he could afford to do so - that is, several wars later. In addition to that particular description, he would talk about the time he was asked by another Brit why he would want to live in the US, and he said it was because here, people talk to you wherever you go. The other man said "I can't imagine anything worse."

And on another occasion, I informed him that one of his anecdotes - about a funny British-based misunderstanding - had turned up in some newspaper, but it took place in a ferry off the west coast of Canada. He got upset and said "but in CANADA, people would TALK to each other!"

Crid, is there anywhere else I can read articles from the Independent? It keeps reloading. Also, I ran into the WaPo paywall.

> Just guessing

As are we all....

> would make them look anti-
> social, so they felt they

When I've traveled internationally, I've gotten the lay of the land and moved gently, from eye contact to body language, handshakes, conversation, my very presence (or absence), and all the rest. If when-in-Rome is not applicable, 'looking anti-social' is sometimes the champion's move. I've never deeply offended anyone… There may have been moments of mutual bafflement, but that is, after all, what we're talking about here. The continuing mystery was how they could have learned such strong English without awareness of American college-party mores. (Ahem- Alcohol and other distractions were [probably] at hand.)

(This were patterns in that state college town. My sister had encounters with a number of nephew-of-a-sultan-type Arabs over the years, and her stories were a lot more colorful.)

> that person was likely to give
> you a cold look and say "do I
> KNOW you?"

And for at least two centuries, the proper American response, by now anticipated around the world, is a hand outstretched 71% of the gap and a You do NOW, bloke… Name's Cridmo! Where do you guys go for a brew in this town? Eh? So it's an informal place? And they do sandwiches too? Great....

> A good book on understanding
> English Americans

Been meaning to get to that one. Where was the Feldman published?

• Weirdness! The Wapo piece loads fine here. The Independent article only half-loaded today, so I linked it just for the date of the article. But the whole things loads just now! Strange… I'm on a VPN with Ublock, Ghostery and HTTPS Everywhere running on Firefox Portable.

• The Independent piece is short and not-deep; peak baby is happening, and then "If there’s one thing the pessimists have right, it is that we don’t have all century to figure this out."

• At 8:50pm, 'This were' should have been 'these were patterns' etc.

• Also, socializing in that town was sometimes awkward with students from Wisconsin. We were all young. AND GORGEOUS

• I found a bunch of articles from Clarice Feldman in American Thinker that had 'class' in the titles, but none re: Britain.

“From a much-loved and very witty British friend/entertainer who was born before World War One and left England as soon as he could afford to do so - that is, several wars later. In addition to that particular description, he would talk about the time he was asked by another Brit why he would want to live in the US, and he said it was because here, people talk to you wherever you go. The other man said "I can't imagine anything worse."

Ah, so your evidence, is a singular anecdote rather than a general presumption. As opposed to my experience directly, with two grandmothers born in England, one upper class, and one very middle middle class.

Speaking of anecdotes. My mother’s mother on the subject of American schools: “My dear, American schools are barbaric, and the teachers are barbarians!”

She nailed that one.

• I found a bunch of articles from Clarice Feldman in American Thinker that had 'class' in the titles, but none re: Britain.

Crid at May 25, 2020 9:21 PM

It was at least ten or 15 years ago. I think it predated American Thinker. I remember that she was unimpressed with both the socialist rolling blackouts of the 70’s and the coal strikes. Also she was quite critical of the little indicators the upper middle class ladies use in Britain to prove you are the right class of person.....something about having to make an excuse to eat a salad first, because it wasn’t the “done thing”
Little cues that Americans pay no attention to here, because we aren’t in the business of projecting our social status at the luncheon table.

Table manners in America are such a mishmash of different cultures, we seem to get by with not talking with food in our mouth, decently wielding a knife and fork, and putting a napkin on our lap. (And of course none of this standard American stuff works in Japan. They have their own much different rules)

I saved a bookmark but that was very likely about five computers ago.
So many archives are behind a paywall now.

I think my mother was a real good mother. My father was OK though as I have learned more about his younger days I realize he did not have experience to help. Particularly he was of no help with girls when I was in junior high and HS. I think they both did a better job with my brother.

I used to work at a place that was THE place to work for professionals in that little city. There was a large number of women employed there that suddenly decided the wanted to have a baby in their late 30s. There was a well known photo in the company of 9 very pregnant women all in their late 30s or early 40s. 1 was 39 and having her second...the first was 2 years earlier and she was credited with kicking off the crazy. I only know of two women from that company that did not have kids and did not get the "baby rabies" as it was called there. One was in a relationship with guy who had kids (but not custody) through her 30s. Another was going through stuff with her ex...I would later find out the name I knew her by was a protective identity. I know of 2 that tried to have babies and were not successful. At least from what I have seen that vast majority of women decide they want a baby in their 30s if not before. Not all.

The thing about kinder geld and tax incentives is they are usually a couple thou or so, which is nice to have, don't get me wrong... but no where near offsetting the cost of having a kid.

Nic, it sounds like you're thinking the ultimate goal, which happens not to have been achieved yet, is for women to be able to have children at no cost to themselves.

This subterranean enthusiasm ("incentives") may surprise those who you're expecting will pick up the expense.

So your evidence, is a singular anecdote rather than a general presumption.

No, three stories, as I made clear, and his British audiences certainly seemed to agree with them as well.

No, I'm saying if money is the reason people aren't having kids, the kindergeld isn't enough. The people who are not having kids because of finances are going to continue to not have kids.